The Political Role of Tibetan Buddhism at the Mongol Court

A powerful Buddhist protector deity, Mahakala is a manifestation of divine wrath employed to remove internal and external obstacles. This wrathful deity is considered especially effective in military applications. Beginning in the thirteenth century, the Mongol state employed Tibetan Buddhism as a means to power, both symbolically, as a path to legitimation via sacral kingship, and literally, as a ritual technology to physical power through the use of magic, which was most clearly demonstrated in Mahakala rites. The Mongol court singled out the wrathful figure of Mahakala in his form as Panjaranatha (“Lord of the [Bone] Pavilion”) as state protector and focus of the imperial cult. This form of Mahakala came to symbolize Qubilai Khan (1215–1294), the famous Mongol emperor and founder of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), as the wrathful destructive power of the universal sacral ruler (chakravartin). The Nepalese master artist and head of the Yuan imperial atelier Anige (1245–1306) made a sculpture of Panjaranatha Mahakala for Qubilai Khan’s final conquest of China, and it became a potent symbol of both Qubilai’s rule and the Yuan imperial lineage. The association was so strong that even four centuries later, when the Manchus, who conquered China in the seventeenth century, were positioning themselves as Qubilai’s rightful inheritors, they installed what they claimed was the same statue of Mahakala in the Manchu imperial shrine at Mukden in 1635.1

The Stone Sculpture Dated 1292

Although Qubilai Khan’s Mahakala sculpture disappeared after the fall of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the limestone version in the Musée Guimet, dated 1292, is a product of the same context and reveals much about the tradition. Mahakala’s power is conveyed through the deity’s fierce appearance—bulging eyes, bared fangs, hair standing on end, a crown of skulls and bone ornaments—and his pose, squatting on a human corpse. Images of wrathful deities are commonly carved in black stone (fig. 2), a color closely associated with wrathful activity. Here, the stone figure of Mahakala was painted black, in keeping with the deity’s iconography (fig. 3). 

An inscription on the back of the sculpture (fig. 4) names Qubilai Khan and his Tibetan Imperial Preceptor, Pakpa Lodro Gyeltsen (1235–1280), placing it at the very center of Mongol imperial interests: 

As for this sculpture, in order to spread the precious teachings of the Buddha far and wide and endure for a long time; to pacify obstacles to the lives of all the great patrons and priests; and to destroy all enemies, the one called Atsara Pakshi, close attendant and cared for by the kindness of the dharmaraja called Pakpa, eminent guru and second Buddha of [this] degenerate age, and protected by that widely renowned great khan called Qubilai, king who rules nearly all of the world, acted as patron. The master artist unrivaled in this field of knowledge (craft), called Konchok Kyab, having served, successfully accomplished it in the Water Male Dragon Year (1292). May you enjoy great prosperity! 

The Patron’s Identity 

There has been some speculation as to the identity of the patron of this famous statue.2 Atsara Pakshi, mentioned in the inscription, is not a name but rather an epithet meaning the learned master or sorcerer.3 One intriguing attribution that elucidates Tibetan Buddhism’s political role in the Mongol court is Qubilai Khan’s primary Mahakala ritual specialist at court, Ga Anyen Dampa Kunga Drak (ca. 1230–1303) (fig. 5), a close disciple of Imperial Preceptor Pakpa and often described as pakshi in both Yuan Chinese and Tibetan sources.4 Dampa, recognized as an emanation of Mahakala walking on earth, was credited with intervening in several key battles in Mongol military campaigns, including the momentous final fall of the Chinese Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), and erected several imperially sponsored temples and images of Mahakala.5 

Dampa served the Yuan imperial court and Qubilai Khan directly. The Persian historian Rashid al-Din, who wrote his famous history about 1300, specifically mentions Dampa as someone of great authority and importance in the great khan’s eyes.6 The calligraphy for Dampa’s epitaph stele (1316) was written by the most famous Chinese artist of his time, Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322), and highlights Dampa’s importance at the Mongol court.7 It has even been suggested that Zhao Mengfu’s famous painting Red-Robed Monk of the Western Regions (1304) (fig. 6) commemorates him.8 

Several historical sources attest to Dampa’s applications of Mahakala in the service of the Mongolian military machine; in recognition, many temples and images dedicated to Mahakala were built throughout the empire. Numerous Mongol victories were attributed to Dampa’s summoning of Mahakala. For instance, when the Mongol army first marched south, the Chinese petitioned their martial god Zhenwu to save them, but the Chinese god of war fled, leaving a message that he too had to hide from the Great Black God leading the Mongol army. In another battle Mahakala was sighted on the battlefield. Dampa’s Chinese biography concludes, “This is proof of how he aided the state.”9 

Most famously, in 1275, when Qubilai asked his Imperial Preceptor Pakpa to induce the protector deity Mahakala to intervene against the Southern Song, the Nepalese artist Anige constructed the temple south of Beijing with its statue facing south (that is, facing the Song), and Dampa consecrated it.10 The Song capital fell soon thereafter. When the captured Chinese emperor and his courtiers were brought north, they were astonished to see the image of Mahakala just as they had seen the deity among the Mongol troops.11 These accounts of the fall of the Southern Song via the ritual intervention of Mahakala are recorded in both Chinese and Tibetan sources.12 

The Artist’s Identity 

The artist Konchok Kyab is thus far unidentified. It has been variously suggested that the sculptor was a Tibetan trained in Anige’s Newar-inspired workshops at the Yuan court, or that he might have been a Newar, or even Anige himself.13 This sculpture in fact bears Newar artistic features, while also showing conservative eastern Indian/Pala aspects.14 However, the horns placed on the garuda bird (Tibetan: khyung) (fig. 7) at the top of the sculpture are a small yet very specific Tibetan cultural reference, which suggests that the sculptor Konchok Kyab was Tibetan. 

The kind of hard beige-green stone that composes the sculpture is known to have been used in Burma and eastern India.15 Of those found in Tibet, most are believed to have originated from these places.16 Such small stone sculptures often follow a stele, or plaque, format, with an image carved into the front of a slab of stone in deep relief, while the broad back remains flat. These sculptures were often painted, as seen here. 

Extant Chinese stone sculptures of this deity reveal an entirely different aesthetic, as evident in one example related to the Yuan state cult of Mahakala and found at Baochengsi (dated 1322) (fig. 8), a sculptural niche in Hangzhou, the cultural heartland of China.17 This sculpture must have been made by a Chinese artist, for Mahakala resembles a bearded Chinese general.

Rethinking Yuan Dynasty Art

The sculpture of Mahakala featured here, and the inscription it bears, embodies the religio-political relationship at the heart of Tibetan involvement at the Mongol court. Two years before its creation, in 1290, Dampa was recorded sculpting images from clay with his own hands, which Chinese sources specifically described as “Indic” (fanxiang).18 Tibetan sources also refer to Dampa as the principal sculptor directing a group of artists—some sources specify Chinese artists19—in creating large-scale images of the same form of Mahakala in 1284.20 If Dampa was indeed the patron, could this sculpture have been produced by a Tibetan or Newar artist in Beijing in an “Indic” style under his direction? Considering the diversity of cultural traditions brought together by the Mongols, including the prominent role of Tibetans, Newars, and Tanguts in visual production (for example, Feilaifeng, the White Stupa, and more), this stone image signals a need to further rethink what characterizes Yuan dynasty art.